I've said it before: that's what it's like in a big family. Everything happens on someone's birthday. BoopityBoop were born on JP's birthday. Dad fell and broke his neck on my birthday. Uncle Mickey died on Charlie's birthday and his funeral was on Bill's birthday.
Laughter and tears are all intermingled in a large family.
Roy had friends all over the country and since none of them could get together in the age of Covid Isolation, her friend L. set up a Zoom memorial. She was kind enough to invite our family to join. When it was explained to her that there are a lot of us, she requested that we limit the screens to one per branch of the family. We agreed that was more than fair. The memorial was set for Thursday, the 30th. Megan's birthday, if I remember correctly.
Tuesday, Mom and Dad had a birthday party for a grand daughter out on the patio near their apartment. A wonderful time was had by all.
Wednesday, I joined Mom and Dad for his favorite; spaghetti dinner. We had a lovely time and Dad fell asleep while we watched Hamilton on TV.
Mom couldn't wake him on Thursday morning. The hospice RN diagnosed him with pneumonia. Mom called all of us and told us to come see him one more time. JP and Margy both booked flights home for Sunday.
By the time the Zoom Memorial began, there were 25 of us in Mom's apartment (five or six at a time sitting in the bedroom with Dad, who never opened his eyes but smiled several times) and three or four others outside, on the lawn beside her patio.
So, just like that, Dad made sure we were all together for Roy's memorial and that our possible dozen screens had been reduced to two.
The Memorial was wonderful, emotional, hilarious and sad.
I was sure Dad would not open his eyes again.
Friday morning, I got a text from Josie saying "I just talked to Grandma Punkin. John G. is eating ice cream for breakfast and reading the newspaper!"
There's not a doubt in my mind that Royana told Dad
So he woke up.
And if you'd been given such a reprieve, would you eat anything but ice cream?
Margy and JP both arrived in town on Friday and on Monday, all nine of us kids gathered by his bedside to tell him we were all there, we all loved him and whatever he wanted to do was okay with us. He wanted to get out of bed but was too weak. The hospice nurse told us he didn't have the strength to sit up, even if we could get him out of bed, so we rolled his bed to the door of the bedroom so he could feel like he was in the dining room with Mom. He slept most of the day but he was awake quite a bit, too.
Monday evening, we all had dinner together in Andy's back yard. Covid schmovid, Hubbellpalooza had begun.
We had already made arrangements for a Memorial service for Royana at the Catholic Church my parents belong to. Roy was Catholic as well and in fact, after she and JP had eloped to Vegas to get married, they had a small, Catholic marriage ceremony on my folks' deck at Willowood when they visited Minnesota. The Memorial service was on Wednesday. As far as I know, it was no one's birthday.
It was a grade A summer day, without a cloud in the sky. The service was beautiful. JP's sisters did all the readings. Afterwards, he told us we let him down.
"I figured, Margy does readings all the time, Katie is a pro and Mary Louise is a rock. They won't cry." He told us. " Then you all cried and that made me cry, too."
He left out of his equation the fact that Katie is a bucket of emotion and Margy and I cry at Mass all the time, much less at a Memorial for someone we loved.
Then we all went to Bill and Jen's for a backyard reception and it was perfect. JP's oldest and dearest friends joined us and we ate and drank and laughed and cried and remembered and told stories till dark.
Mom didn't stay the whole time. She went on back home to Dad in the early evening.
Just after dark, Meg played the Royana slide show she'd spent the day putting together. It included several clips from the TV shows Roy had done when she was a teenager. Royana had done Broadway at 11, landed the titular character in a comedy called Raising Miranda when she was 15 and was brilliant on stage. Her comic timing was impeccable.
Not a full minute had passed since the show ended when Andy answered his cell, then turned to us all and said "Dad died."
Clearly, Royana had said "There's your cue; exit, stage right."
One memorial morphed into another as we all made our way from Plymouth to Edina.
We got to Mom's at about 10:30 and while not everyone could stay until the Cremation Society could collect Dad's remains, I think something like 25 of us were there to pay our last respects. We pulled out photos of Dad, Mom, all of us and told more stories and laughed and cried.
A few weeks ago, my brother Joe told me he suspected Dad spent half his time on the other side. We all felt the same. Mom had noticed that he talked about (and to) his brothers a lot, lately.
Earlier in the summer, Dad had told several of us that his buddy Carl had called the night before and told him that Carl had set up a foursome to play golf and they were all waiting on Dad. Did he want to play or not? Dad said he'd gotten really excited and told Carl he'd love to play but then remembered that he'd broken his neck, was confined to a wheelchair and couldn't possibly play golf. Then Dad said "about a half hour after the call, I remembered that Carl's been dead for years!" and he laughed and laughed.
I thought of that as we went through old photos late Wednesday night and I found this:
My brother Bill wrote this about Dad.
I'll have more to say later but right now, I just see Dad and Royana, dancing together. Dad is young and strong and Roy is gorgeous and they're both laughing.